Some medicaments that are administered to a patient by intravenous injection are unstable and undesirably deteriorate over time if they have been mixed beforehand. For example, when an amino acid transfusion solution and a glucose transfusion solution are mixed and stored, the mixed solution will become brown due to the so-called Maillard reaction. When a fat emulsion is mixed with an electrolytic solution and stored, the fat component will cause coagulation. When a phosphoric acid-containing solution and a calcium-containing solution are mixed, the precipitation of calcium phosphate will result in undesirable changes.
For the storage of such medicaments, a medical container having multiple chambers, in which components can be individually contained prior to being mixed, is often used. FIG. 10 is a plan view showing an example of such a conventional multiple-chamber medical container. FIG. 11 is a cross-sectional view taken along the line X-X of FIG. 10.
The multiple-chamber medical container has chambers 10 and 11 for storing each of two medicaments that should not be mixed or dissolved beforehand. A weak partition seal 20 is disposed to separate the chambers 10 and 11, ensuring that the medicaments in the chambers 10 and 11 can be isolated from each other and stored safely and reliably until administration. A suspension hole 30 is located on the upper end of the container, and an outlet 32 is provided on the lower end of the container to discharge the medicaments from the chamber 11. A rubber plug (not shown) is disposed inside of the outlet 32, thereby preventing discharge of the medicament from the chamber 11 during storage.
The weak partition seal 20 is formed so as to be openable when the internal pressure of the chamber 10 and/or 11 is increased. At the time of use, pressure is applied to either of the chambers 10 or 11 to open the weak partition seal 20, causing the chambers 10 and 11 to communicate with each other and the medicaments a and b to quickly mix or dissolve. To administer the mixed medicament to a patient, the container is hung from a support post or the like by the suspension hole 30, and an infusion tube is then inserted into the rubber plug provided at the end of the container. The mixed medicament in the container can be thereby administered to the patient through the infusion tube.
In such a multiple-chamber medical container, however, a medicament in liquid state is often contained in the chamber 11 to which the outlet 32 is attached. Accordingly, if an infusion tube is inserted into the rubber plug before opening the weak partition seal 20, the medicament may be discharged from the outlet 32 prior to being mixed.
The present invention has been accomplished to solve the problems described above, with an object of the present invention being to provide a multiple-chamber medical container that reliably prevents the discharge of medicaments from the outlet prior to being mixed.